11/30/04

3rd mistake:
3 <= 3

3|111
3! =/= 3

11/29/04

Nothing in this week’s SI for I completely misread the contest instructions; a particular shame since it ruined a joke I first attempted in 5th grade with an ideal setup, only to have been left waiting for another opportunity after mangling it. At least I am getting practice in faux-French collaboration.

‘Monsieur éléphant, while zee life is insignificant, as is zee living of it, and zee outcome of this situation may not be worth zee immediate intervention- mon dieu, who of us can ever tell?- it is not zee place of me to act decisively; but I will allow myself to say that zee ‘cowboy’’ (and by this he meant the Crocodile) ‘will bring about an unfavorable diplomatic isolation before you might say “qu'est-ce que c'est que cette petite tasse là qui j'ai prendre à ma tante de la bibliothèque, n'est-pas?”’

This is the way Tri-Colored-Python-Rock-Snakes always talk.

11/28/04

[And back through the bedroom window.]

Finding Neverland, despite adultery compounded with implications of pedophilia and drug usage, was a sadder “Shakespeare in Love” or “Shadowlands”. Perhaps it’s only a Washington thing, but the line “redskins are defeated” caused a wave of laughter to overwhelm an otherwise teary-eyed theatre. I still think the title would be better simply “Neverland”. Odd seeing Johnny Depp pretending to pretend to be a pirate.

The LinDanny bonding prior to returning from the east allowed chopstick usage to be instinctively taught. And you so owe me awesome points.
“...So we have time for a game?”

11/27/04

Virtually touring, for it is so transcendental.

11/26/04

At the annual Catchphrase game:
“Every woman has one… and she can never find anything in it…”
Someone did manage to guess “purse” before the first wave of laughter began to die.

[I will not even begin to guess why the computer was restarted. I hope no one tried to IM me...]

11/25/04

“Sweet dreams are made of this...”
With linen having not yet been praised, let me now extol the modal sheets, plush backrest, and luxurious egg crate which have allowed my dorm’s narrower bed to make even the diminished hours of sleep so luxuriously restful. And now at home I am able to sleep less tensely on eggshells.

[And also thankful for being able to get into Baskin-Robbins 5 minutes after they close.]

11/24/04

Not exactly sure how Away Messages will be maintained over Thanksgiving. If this is being displayed, likely not very well. Cell me.

[If this Away Message is being displayed I should be at home.

Although, since it means I'm away I suppose I could be out. It's still probably best to cell me. Or, since I'm allegedly home, call me here.

[Or, since I forgot how bad cell service is back home, perhaps IM would be better.]]

11/23/04

“Deseritur Cieros, linquunt Pthiotica Tempe
Crannonisque domos ac moenia Larisaea,
Pharsalum coeunt, Pharsalia tecta frequentant.
Rura colit nemo, mollescunt colla iuvencis,
non humilis curvis purgatur vinea rastris,
non glebam prono convellit vomere taurus,
non falx attenuat frondatorum arboris umbram,
squalida desertis rubigo infertur aratris.
Ipsius at sedes, quacumque opulenta recessit
regia, fulgenti splendent auro atque argento.”


Obviously it’s about a cow.

11/22/04

Singled in this week’s SI, though it is more of a halved I suppose; my actual submission proposed a 2π% sales tax. I think I impressed the Empress by parenthetically citing an entry I feared similar to my proposal of strictly enforced 11-20, 21-30, 31-40 etc. item lanes. Yay academic integrity.

11/21/04

For a great book ought to not be read but once. As stated in a previous Away Message:

Reductio ad absurdum:
Orwell/​Carroll/​Orwell/​Tolstoy/​Unknown/​Waller/​Dostoevsky/​Chaucer/​Dickens/​Dumas/​Dostoevsky/​Marx/​Dickens/​Mann/​Hubbard/​Frank/​Johnson/​Dante/​Cervantes/​Stevenson/​Stoker/​Bradbury/​Turgenev/​Friedan/​Hemingway/​Rand/​Shelley/​Steinbeck/​Dickens/​Fitzgerald/​Seuss/​Rowling/​Conrad/​Doyle/​Twain/​Hugo/​Dostoevsky/​Homer/​Freud/​Ellison/​Benchley/​Alcott/​Nabokov/​Golding/​Kafka/​Eliot/​Melville/​Homer/​Steinbeck/​Dickens/​Kerouac/​Kesey/​Darwin/​Woolf/​Milton/​Wilde/​Austen/​Plato/​Rushdie/​Hawthorne/​Austen/​Eliot/​Carson/​Lawrence/​Shikibu/​Dickens/​Lao-Tzu/​Hardy/​Dumas/​Nietzsche/​Lee/​Woolf/​Stevenson/​Joyce/​Susann/​Thoreau/​Tolstoy/​London/​Baum

11/20/04

The next time I take a computer science course I am taking it pass/fail.

11/19/04

Watching and sometimes botching, wondering what emazing radce is.

I think maybe we meant radishes? But we were really hungry and tired and sorta confused...

11/18/04

So miserable I can’t even begin to whine in self-pity. I really hope there wasn’t anything going on this week that depended on me being in a good mood.

11/17/04

I somehow forgot to link to <http://www.johnkerryisadouchebagbutimvotingforhimanyway.com>; I think I planned to use this for my Election Day Away Message. A pity, for what had once been a refreshingly novel outlook has regressed into a too common repetitive mantra.

To paraphrase Churchill: American democracy is the worst form of government but I’m voting for it anyway.

11/16/04

No one should be this happy from using the Mean Value Theorem.

11/15/04

You want to know but you don’t want to know but you want to know.
My life is an onion and it’s making me cry.

11/14/04

Team Superfrosh has retired undefeated, after having taken first in its only tournament, in which the earned gift certificates when divided among team members ironically led to its receiving the lowest prize/person of all competitors.

Whither the Poisonous Platypuses (which also Word prefers to Platypi)?

11/13/04

Snatch was like Big Trouble, only for a very different audience. And, um, better.

(And rabbis actually do discuss the etymology of virgin.)

11/12/04

Pecanny Pinery
Catherine and Arthur, twins,
Cush’ning those prostrate on
Knees that won’t bend,

Fetched cafeteria,
Aiding those ailing from
Hypoglycemia:
Truly a friend.

11/11/04

No, it’s Jupina.
(Though I still think I prefer Orangina for that type of drink.)

11/10/04

A: Because she’s not tall enough.
Q: What’s the other reason why Barbara Mikulski wouldn’t get this joke?

11/9/04

I discovered a couple weeks ago that "rather accurate" is an oxymoron, but I can't take advantage of this. It's so long after the 60 Minutes scandal that everyone else has forgotten about it, and with the timing wrong it’s not funny enough to try. I had hoped that CBS would have some election-night snafu that would give me an opportunity to share this gem, but alas. What can one do with expired humor?

11/8/04

So between losing (again) and finding my key I came across an empty new journal lying abandoned by a trashcan, which just had to be acquired. However, I’m not exactly sure what to do with the thing. Too perfectionistic to begin to commit irrevocably by staining the bright white pages, I can always just strew them through Away Messages if I do want to record my private thoughts.

11/7/04

Fiddler on the Roof : Latin :: Tevye’s 2 youngest daughters : 4th and 5th declensions

11/6/04

The kleptomania mentioned in an earlier Away Message referred to the Election Judge button I absconded with. I wanted some piece of memorabilia, and without any “I Voted” stickers, the only other thing to take was a fistful of chad, for St. Louis used *those* Votomatic voting machines.

And speaking of stealing and elections, I am even more in favor of Electronic Voting Machines after having served with an alternative. Granted, this is the extreme straw man; but chad aside, the ease of overvoting is ridiculous, and it is not possible for it to be easier to (alleged worst case situation) code false smart-cards than it is to Xerox any of the so many pieces of paper that must impossibly be obsessively tracked, to say nothing of how awful checking for write-ins is.

11/5/04

A huge rush at the morning with a couple spikes in the day, and 88-90% turnout- then practically no one for the final 2 hours? We kept awaiting the huge pre-closing evening rush, until 10 minutes before closing, when we realized it wasn’t happening. So what do poll workers do when it gets slow? Bingo!

There are 6 check-in judges {A-C, D-G, H-K, L-P, Q-S (me for half the day), T-Z}, each with a voter register. By 5 most pages were nearly full, many needing only one more voter. (Absentee balloted were free spaces.) There was a 4-way tie with 2 bingos each with 30 minutes left, and a voter total of 2399; yet no one else came except for a girl who ran up at 7:02 as I was removing the outer signs, who I forget to ask the last name of.

11/4/04

Yay truancy, yay kleptomania, and one more cheer for apathy.

11/3/04

[Okay, that is probably the most unclear way of stating what I'm feeling, but rather than rephrase I'll just refer to the I don't care sentiment.]

Lots of anecdotes, but so tired that I don’t care and so don’t care that I’m tired.

11/2/04

I don't suppose anyone planning to vote around lunchtime might accidentally leave a slice of pizza in the voting booth? Midafternoon snacks would be just as appreciated.

If it didn't violate the election law I must uphold I would also be receptive to arguments against writing in Jon Stewart for President. Because, honestly, I think I would trust him most to lead the country.

11/1/04

“Why can't we be ourselves like we were yesterday...”
Halloween was as New Year’s Eve was, except with BLT instead of da ba dee da ba daa.

According to Zeno of Elea, halfway done with my paper on Greek Mathematics.
“...the wisdom of a fool won't set you free...”